reckless abandon
by ElectricClover
Summary: SiriusMarlene —- but they always picked each other up, rose like twin phoenixes from the dying embers, because, although they were a boy with a charming smile, and a girl with a disarming laugh, together they were golden —- they loved and died with furious, reckless abandon.


_A/N: Houses Competition, once again. Thanks ever so much, CP, Di, AJ, and 2D for the betas._

 _House: Ravenclaw_

 _Category: Short 1_

 _Prompt: Non-canon Pairing_

 _Word Count (excluding a/n): 678_

* * *

She was everything that glimmered gold in the sunlight; a girl made of ice, and fire, and devil-may-care smiles. She was the type of girl that _mattered_ , that no one could ignore, even if they wanted to.

Except him.

Him, with his languid smirks, easy laughter, and witty flirtations that dripped, smooth and slow off his tongue like honey. But she didn't mind, not at all, because she was Marlene McKinnon, and she was too fearless to care.

She was a lionhearted girl, and she didn't need anyone.

Then, as war hung low and heavy over their heads, as she started to crack because of the ' _what if's_ ', as they were no longer so young, no longer so fucking foolish, everything between them changed.

Just because they were drunk on being brave, and wild, and almost free, when Sirius kissed her in the Common Room, by the gentle glow of the fire, until her pulse raced and she had never felt so completely _alive_ , she didn't think to say _no._ They clung on to each other, breathed each other in like they were suffocating and the other was air, because all anyone ever needed was someone to hold on to.

They were a boy with a Black smile, and a girl with a heart of steel, and that, just being together, was _everything._

It was never easy, because where's the fun in that? No, they blazed and burned and consumed one another, until they were nothing more than smoldering ashes, scattered amongst young corpses and casualties of war.

But they always picked each other up, rose like twin phoenixes from the dying embers, because, although they were a boy with a charming smile, and a girl with a disarming laugh, together — _together_ , they were golden.

Then Sirius came home from a meeting she was to know nothing about and she could _see_ the challenge in his eyes, the promise of something great to come.

He said, "Dumbledore's looking for recruitments."

And she said, "Sounds dangerous. I'm in."

They fought, and they fought bravely, with each other, and with themselves. James and Lily joined them, of course, and Remus, and Peter, and Alice, and Frank; and they felt fucking _invincible._ The world was theirs, and nobody had ever felt as utterly, deliriously happy as them.

But then winter came, and their dreams of change were only that, dreams. They were both too small for the tiny flat in Clapton, and their fires started to burn out. Their bed was cold and unslept in, devoid of the passion that had made them _Sirius and Marlene_ , _Marlene and Sirius_ , something unbroken and deep and forever.

Sirius was not the boy she remembered, he was half-smoked cigarettes and the _tick-tick-tick_ of time running out.

She, too, was not the tenacious girl with an infectious temper and an infectious laugh. She was empty, and cold, and altogether _done._

She told him so, and he replied, "Fine, what do I care?"

Tears burning in her eyes — what was that? She never cried, she was _strong!_ — she packed her bags and left. Only for a few days, she promised herself, she had stayed with her parents before, but she would always come back.

One thing she hadn't counted on, however, was that death would come knocking at her door.

The sun rose, casting honeyed shadows across their empty bed, and he sat and waited by the door.

He waited for a lionhearted girl, a girl with a heart of steel, a girl with a disarming laugh, a girl that he _loved._ Instead came a paper, clasped in an owl's talons, that spoke only of death, and defeat, and the end of everything.

Sirius did not let himself cry, because they were _happy_ , unimaginably so, and to think of anything else would be betraying the girl that she was, or had been.

A girl that was the best thing that had ever happened to his mockery of a life. A girl that he loved with a furious, reckless abandon, until it killed them.


End file.
